I found my dimension in shambles. Broken and leaking. The massive sea below the floating islands shrunk to a puddle with patches of static scattered throughout. I saw the bare glittering sands previously hidden by the endless waters of my dimension and balked at the sight.
The hearth was gone, my islands crumbled, my armada depleted, and my people missing.
They were not dead, despite what the mountains upon mountains of eldritch flesh suggested. I couldn't find their bodies in the wreck. Parts of it. Yes. But no complete body, which meant they escaped somehow. But to where?
I gritted my teeth.
Damn that bitch. Even in death.
Lauren must've encouraged Quellitrax to attack me, despite knowing I wasn't here. He brought so many of his brothers and sisters, hoping to kill me. I felt pity for them strangely. Nobody wanted to die a fool.
I raised a hand to burn away all things eldritch, but then I stopped when I sensed something, or rather someone, in the backyard of the mansion. Space folded, and I was there. I came face to face with the last person, or rather thing, I expected.
It was a sentinel packed with so many stealth runes and space runes I didn't sense him initially. A great deal of them were alien, even to me, but they were undoubtedly written in the languages that comprised the runic system.
"BB57Z4?"
"Creator," he offered me a bow. He was built the way all of my sentinels were—modeled loosely after Ultron. They were tall and gaunt with arrays running up and down their bodies, allowing for flight, energy fire, teleportation, improved senses, stealth, and Illusions. A few like Sentinel series BB5 here enjoyed special attention and were armed with experimental and at times advanced runes, often applied my myself or Uriel.
"Forgive me for hiding. Mistress Uriel instructed me to. Your soul signature was completely different from my previous scans. I feared you'd been compromised."
"What happened here, BB5?"
"It would be better if I showed you." His chest opened up, spitting out a runic projector and playing a recorded hard light message.
The X-Men, the Sentinels, Yelena, Rin, and Peter stood shoulder to shoulder as Uriel and Rin delivered their message.
"So, we just talk to the robot's chest, and he'll be able to hear us?" Logan asked, scratching his chin with his gauntlet glove. His face was covered in soot and blood.
"And see us," Peter added, his mask emoting his nervousness.
"Jeez, Logan," Kitty folded her arms, pouting a little.
"Can we just get this over with. Preferably before the dimension collapses?"Scott asked. His armor was still healing, and he was hunched over and barely standing.
"Quite right," Uriel said. "We included the recordings of the entire ordeal from each of our senses. There should be a substantial data package for you to run through, but if I were to summarize...we nearly lost."
"Lauren summoned Quellitrax when she dipped," Rin explained, "and he brought his entire family so we had to resort to desperate measures and tear open the already fragile walls of the dimension to get rid of most of them, and slay the remaining that stayed after the decompression…" He scratched his head awkwardly. "We were kind of hoping you knew how to put it back together since you know...you created this place."
I huffed. Typical of my apprentice. Start shit and make me clean up after him. It still didn't answer the question where they were...though.
"Well, you're probably wondering where we are? And that's kind of complicated… We plan to dive into the chaotic space between universes with a ship we kind of threw together from all of the ships, tech, and runes left after the fight. We also took the sleeping mutants. Figured they'd be safer with us. We could be practically anywhere or anytime…but I've got the Yamato, and I infused your Rebellion and armor with enough personal soul energy to make a homing beacon. You'll find us eventually. BB has your shit, by the way. I don't know if this is a waste of time, if you'll even see this before your dimension collapses, if you'll make it back at all... I just want to say, thanks a lot, boss. I don't always make it easy, but I was glad that it was you who found me."
The message ended.
My eyes misted over, and BB5 leaned in. "Are you okay, Master?"
"Not really," I said. "But I'll mourn later. There's much work to do, BB."
My gaze panned over the desolation that was my dimension, my domain, and an instinctive knowledge; an urge welled up within me.
"What were the tiers of demon magic again?" Awakened, Establishment, Condensation, and Saturation.
I was technically in the Saturation realm. I didn't quite have the natural reserves to pull it off yet, but I was close. It should technically be possible to pull it off.
I delved deep into my skills, my soul, the crystallization of everything I'd accomplished with demonic and angelic energy, and wrapped my will around it. Slowly, I tried dragging it into the world and found it was practically bolted down there.
It was disappointing, but not altogether shocking.
I needed more time then. I could be patient. I wasn't exactly hurting for power. Closing my eyes, I called on my Domain of the Demigod skill and felt it resonate with my ruined dimension. I spoke a command, my body still in True form, "Mend."
And reality did. Energy flooded out of me by the millions and millions, but no problem in my true form. My energy regeneration nearly matched the rate at which I consumed it, and I could stay this way for weeks. The static around the dimensions vanished, the holes in the sky sealed, and the islands clumped back together, and new ones twisted out of nothing by my will.
By the time I was done, the dimension was healed and bigger than ever, but I wasn't. I collapsed to my knees, shifting out of my enhanced state, and simply stayed there.
For the first time since I arrived on this planet, I was genuinely free but felt worse than ever. Lauren got me.
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